Berg, Alban (1885-1935)

[Richard Barrett]

I was invited to contribute a post to the Belgrade Philharmonic's blog, about their recent concert of Berg, Webern and Brahms. Here is the section about Berg:

For me, Alban Berg’s violin concerto represents a compositional ideal in the way that it’s open to the inclusion of diverse “found materials” – the open strings of the violin, an Austrian folk song, a Bach chorale, the Viennese waltz style – but in a way that sounds integrated and consistent on a deep level rather than fragmented and eclectic. While I’d be the last person to say that a composer’s music can be explained to any great extent in terms of the methods used to write it, I believe that the simultaneous sense of openness and consistency is imparted to this work by Berg’s use of the twelve-tone method of composition inherited from his mentor Schoenberg, even though the music indeed expresses itself directly without the need for any kind of explanation. The method isn’t a way of relating everything back to a “twelve-tone series” but a way of relating everything to everything else. Berg’s violin concerto is the complexity of human thoughts and feelings made clearly audible. The concert last Friday sent me off to listen again to recordings of his other orchestral music – the Lulu Suite and Three Pieces op.6 – with renewed enthusiasm.

And indeed it did. Since then I've listened to two classic Berg recordings - the LSO/Abbado disc of the orchestral pieces (missing out the Altenberg-Lieder) for now), and the first complete Lulu recording with Boulez. Somehow I found myself hearing the op.6 pieces in a completely different way from before - I had thought of them as sometimes tipping the scales towards murky orchestration, but suddenly (listening to the same recording I've always listened to!) I no longer thought so, I have no idea how or why that happened. It struck me that there might well by now be recordings around that I'd prefer to the aforementioned ones, which no doubt people round here have been listening to. What are your favourite recordings of Berg's music?

[Beef Oven!]

I was invited to contribute a post to the Belgrade Philharmonic's blog, about their recent concert of Berg, Webern and Brahms. Here is the section about Berg:



And indeed it did. Since then I've listened to two classic Berg recordings - the LSO/Abbado disc of the orchestral pieces (missing out the Altenberg-Lieder) for now), and the first complete Lulu recording with Boulez. Somehow I found myself hearing the op.6 pieces in a completely different way from before - I had thought of them as sometimes tipping the scales towards murky orchestration, but suddenly (listening to the same recording I've always listened to!) I no longer thought so, I have no idea how or why that happened. It struck me that there might well by now be recordings around that I'd prefer to the aforementioned ones, which no doubt people round here have been listening to. What are your favourite recordings of Berg's music?

I don't know about a favorite recording a such, because I go through OCD phases with music and any 'favorite' is just a snapshot in time of where my head's at; but I will say four things, mainly about the 3 Orchesterstücke, Op.6 .

First, my current favorite recording of Berg's 3 Orchestral Pieces is James Levine, BPO Deutsche Grammophon. This really is a fabulous CD that people would not regret buying, if they don't already have it.



Second, do listen to Herbert von Karajan's DG 3 pieces. Forget what the time-worn narrative on these recordings is, listen without prejudice!



Third, Sinopoli can be idiosyncratic, but he often gets to things in the music that others can't. He's not actually idiosyncratic IMV, he's intellectually curios.





Fourth. I've never found one recording of Berg's violin concerto to be significantly better than the next (within reason). I'm still waiting for a Wow! recording!

[Beef Oven!]

Strangely (I think it's fair to say that), the first Berg composition I got into was the Chamber concerto. I bought this CD years ago and still love it to this day (those DG 20th Century Classics were the backbone of my growing modern classical collection back in the early 90s).

The whole album is a winner, IMHO.

[Beef Oven!]

I have this book in my Amazon Kindle basket and my cursor often hovers over the buy button. But at just under £20 I keep flinching. I think that's rather expensive for an e-book in this day and age. But when it comes to downloads and CDs, I don't quite apply the same level of parsimony!

Anyone got the book?

[Richard Barrett]

Oh yes, I have the Karajan and Sinopoli boxes but they're not under B on the shelves. Thanks for the reminder. I don't have that book but I do have the excellent ones by Mosco Carner and Douglas Jarman, and the Cambridge Companion to Berg. I guess those might be a bit technical for some tastes.

As for the Violin Concerto, you're right, there are many good ones. My recent listening was to Thomas Zehetmair, with Heinz Holliger conducting the Philharmonia. What I'm really interested in is a recording of Lulu where the orchestra is more precise and more upfront than Boulez's Paris Opera orchestra and where the female lead speaks German with less of an accent than Teresa Stratas, fine though she is in the sung parts (the rest of the cast is superb also).

[Beef Oven!]

Well, if you can suffer it in English (it's surprisingly good, and Ive attended a performance in English a few years back), you might want to try this .....




I Also think the Bohm incomplete recording on DG is superb, but I'm no connoisseur.

[Richard Barrett]

Well, if you can suffer it in English

Ooh no, I don't think so.

I Also think the Bohm incomplete recording on DG is superb, but I'm no connoisseur.

It is, but the incompleteness of it is a problem nowadays.

[Pianoman]

I have to agree about the Levine/ BPO disc, which has been a staple of my listening for years - the sheer opulence of the orchestra is overwhelming in places, but it is only one approach...

My favourite DVD is the Glyndebourne Lulu with a superb Christine Schafer in the title role, and intelligent Graham Vick production and excellent conducting from Andrew Davis.

Lots of excellent Violin Concertos, but current favourite is the Isabelle Faust /Abbado, which I have to say now supersedes the Perlman/ Ozawa (just) - for now, at least...

[Richard Barrett]

current favourite is the Isabelle Faust /Abbado, which I have to say now supersedes the Perlman/ Ozawa (just) - for now, at least...

Yes indeed. That Perlman disc has the violin too forwardly balanced for my liking, but the playing is wonderful (also the Stravinsky!).

[Petrushka]

My very first Berg disc was on LP, the BBC SO and Boulez in the Chamber Concerto, 3 Pieces and Altenberg Lieder, purchased in 1976. The 3 Pieces for Orchestra blew me away completely from the very first listen though nowadays my preferred versions are those from VPO/Abbado, a recording of stunning clarity, and BPO/Karajan. Despite knowing the work for over 40 years I still find it a complicated listen due to the absolute mass of detail going on, particularly in the third piece. Every recording is different in the detail which comes out. Nevertheless, the ending is totally shattering. I also have LSO/Abbado and Staatskapelle Drssden/Sinopoli with the aforementioned Boulez on CD. I really need to get the BPO/Levine disc.

Afraid to say, that I find the Chamber Concerto very difficult to 'get'. It hasn't 'clicked' with me in 40 years and I'm doubting if it ever will. Not heard it for a long while so need to try again.

Faust/Orchestra Mozart/Abbado in the Violin Concerto for me.

[jayne lee wilson]

Where it all began for me, and a true trailblazer.....





...always very drawn to the Lyric Suite, of many recordings I especially like the Juilliard Quartet on Testament c/w Carter and William Schuman. (1961/2005).

The Violin Concerto is a work I always expect to like on each renewed encounter..... But somehow it never fully engages me. I never yet fell in love with it.
I do like Gielen's Arte Nova disc, of the Three Pieces from the Lyric Suite c/w the Altenberg Lieder, and an excellent account of Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony.
But to be honest I don't seek Berg out much these days...probably a matter of early overdosing on a small oeuvre.

I know exactly what Petrushka means about the Chamber Concerto. I do get drawn in more as the finale burns along ever more fiercely, and - what an amazing ending! Diminuendo fragments against the outlasting, fading resonance of the piano... perhaps it's worth it just for that.
It was a piquant idea to couple it with Mozart's Gran Partita as Boulez did in his 2nd (?) recording... (2008, Uchida/Tetzlaff/EC, Decca).

[Pianoman]

Yes indeed. That Perlman disc has the violin too forwardly balanced for my liking, but the playing is wonderful (also the Stravinsky!).

Yes, that bright, rather forward balance of the soloist does indeed suit the Stravinsky very well.

I'm just about to try the new Gerhaher/ Luisi Wozzeck DVD from Zurich, so looking forward to what looks like an interesting staging..

[richardfinegold]

I've been exploring Webern's music in the past few months, and was about to dip into Berg and so this is a timely thread for me.
It's been a while since I had played any Berg but he was always the one Composer of the Second Viennese School whose music I found instantly appealing.
I have always been more drawn to instrumental music than to Opera, but when I first started listening to Classical as an enthusiastic teenager my Father, whose tastes ran more in the Operatic realm, was determined to rectify that. The Metropolitan Orchestra had a touring company that would come to the provinces and in 1 week we went to performances of The Marriage of Figaro, Tannhauser, and Lulu (in English)-- a very disparate grouping of works. They all made a lasting impression but the Lulu was the most disturbing, and ultimately very memorable. I sought out Wozzeck a few years later when I moved to Chicago
and despite being able to afford probably the worst seat in the Lyric Opera House and having to endure a bitterly complaining first wife at my side I will always remember that as well. I find the satirical march themes from Wozzeck running through my head when I read about the mass slaughter in the trench warfare of WWI.
I have long enjoyed the Perlman/Ozawa recording but since acquiring the Suk/Ancerl (the soloist is more realistically balanced here as well) I have been drawn to that performance and am listening to it currently. I also have the Dorati/Mercury and the Karajan discs that others have referenced and the Dorati particularly has been getting a lot of listening time and triggered my recent foray into Webern. Alas, the Chamber Concerto has eluded my appreciation as well, but I have the Boulez recording somewhere and will try it again.
When I first listened to Berg my acquaintance with Mahler's music was sketchy. Having become much more familiar with
GM my appreciation for Berg may deepen, or at least that is the hope here

[Beef Oven!]

I'm a bit surprised that the Chamber Concerto doesn't do much for some.

[Richard Barrett]

I'm a bit surprised that the Chamber Concerto doesn't do much for some.

I find the soundworld of it less immediately attractive than those of his orchestral/vocal pieces, less subtle maybe, and the form is somewhat arcane - this and the Sonata are the works of his I listen to the least